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Sunday, May 16, 2010

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

She was reading an old CityBusiness this afternoon. She ran across this story in a side bar.

On March 2 New Single Assessor Errol Williams got stuck in the elevators at city hall. There were two numbers posted in the elevator car, along with an explicit notice not to call the Fire Department. He called both emergency numbers posted in the car, they were the engineer's office and the security guard. Guess what? Of course neither number answered. He then called a friend in the Civil Sheriff's office who called, guess who? The Fire Department, of course. When the Fire Department got him out, guess what they told him? "Don't pay any attention to what the City posted."

Seems like there ought to be a metaphor or a moral in that story somewhere. Possibly about the mighty being unable to overcome the institutional idiocy that infects everything in City Government.

I'm sure most readers have experienced similar dysfunction in public systems in New Orleans. The feeling sure seems familiar on any number of levels.